Baked early potatoes and mogette spread

I’ve often talked to you about potatoes in my various content, and how much a potato is not equal to any potato (no, don’t go, I promise, we’re not going to do the math), and that not all varieties are the same for all uses. Today, beyond the variety, it is above all the stage of maturity of the product that we are going to talk about, because I have received the honorable mission of telling you the story of very special potatoes: the potatoes of early land.

What better way to enhance this product than a quick recipe to share with loved ones, for an aperitif dinner or an accompaniment for a family meal outdoors?

Early potatoes, spring freshness

The so-called “new” early potatoes have just come out of the belly of the earth! These are the first freshly harvested potatoes of the year, by hand, as they are too fragile for harvesting machinery.

We say to ourselves “yeah but Tata, potatoes, there are all year round! », but no, not scoops, they are different. Early potatoes, it is over a period going from April for the very first to mid-August (moreover they lose their name on August 15, is not early potato who wants) for the last .

Early potatoes are potatoes harvested before full maturity: generally, the potatoes are harvested when the leaves are dry and withered and before the rainy periods at the end of summer (well, it all depends on when you planted them and where we live from!), whereas here, we harvest them very young.

You usually get smaller sized potatoes (which is pretty damn cool to reduce cooking time), with a very thin skin that doesn’t need to be peeled (just rubbed with a brush all the way through). more !).

The other side of the coin is that it is a much more fragile product than the ware potato: it is kept cool, preferably in the vegetable drawer of the fridge, and it is consumed quickly.

However, early potatoes remain a product that is easy to find, at greengrocers, in markets or at the supermarket, and given its ease of preparation (which for me still makes it more accessible in the kitchen than potatoes conservation clay that cooks a little longer and needs to be peeled), it would be a shame not to give it a chance.

Early potatoes and locavorism

Potatoes challenged me to offer you a recipe combining early potatoes by highlighting the products of Charente Maritime and what is part of the culinary landscape of the region.

A little aside: early potatoes, a bit like wine, come from different regions, each with its own harvest periods and particularities, and obviously, if other regions make them, I must say that I discovered the apple earthen primeur from Ile de Ré (who has an AOP and AOC, classy or not?) at mother-in-law’s, simply baked in the oven, with coarse salt: there was clearly a before and after in my love for the potatoes!

It’s quite subtle, but I who don’t like the skin of ware potatoes, I really like the rendering of that of early potatoes, and their taste is a little more nutty.

Doudou (aka the second man in the house after Koda, hey), is a purebred Charentais. It is in his family culinary memories that I went to dig to offer you this recipe.

His grandparents have a huge vegetable garden in which they grow a legume that even has several village festivals in the area: the mogette (or mojhette depending on the location).

The people of Vendée and Charentais will certainly not agree to treat each other to the scoop of this regional product, but I imagine that it’s a bit of their chocolatine/pain au chocolat debate here.

When he was younger, doudou took part in the shelling of mogettes freshly picked by the grandparents. It was obviously a task that did not excite him so much to hear him talk about it, but which is undeniably part of his childhood.

Her grandmother makes huge jars of them that she still offers today during family meals, and of which she has enough stock to hold a seat. It is a very large white bean, which is either canned or eaten fresh, much like fava beans. I find it has a subtle and sweet flavor, which goes very well with that of early potatoes.

I wanted to keep the potatoes in their greatest simplicity: melting, the colored skin that breaks under the tooth, the small grains of coarse salt (or fleur de sel!) which come as a bonus, and make a variation of a recipe appreciated by almost everyone: hummus, but mogettes version!

I tweaked the seasoning slightly to get something very mild. A little mashed almonds gives a light flavor to this spread which becomes like a creamy cream, in which to dip your roasted potatoes…

And to really play the regional and local card, which is the backbone of my presence here, I added a little garlic. It is in fact garlic picked young (a bit like our early potatoes), at the stage of about 3 months: as for the new onion, we will eat both the aerial parts and the bulb.

Here, the most courageous bite into it for breakfast on May 1st, I don’t know where this tradition comes from, of which I can’t find any trace on the net, but I don’t think I’m a sufficiently informed public: I prefer my granola!

On these words that smell good local culinary heritage, I give you the recipe, and invite you to find the real published on instagram which offers a preview in pictures of this recipe.